The Air Force has the money it needs for the A-10 Thunderbolt — but may soon get a new partner to help keep it in the air

An US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt flies over Southwest Asia in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, October 29, 2015.

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US Air Force

The Air Force now has the money it needs to start
upgrading the wings on more than one-third of its A-10
Thunderbolts.

However, the service may soon get a new partner to help
keep the attack aircraft in the air.

The Thunderbolt continues to see duty around the world,
and the Air Force says it wants to keep it in service into the
2030s.

The Air Force is set to acquire new wings for its A-10
Thunderbolts in order to keep the vaunted attack aircraft in
operation until the 2030s.

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The Air Force told Congress last year that 110 of its 283 A-10s were at
risk of being permanently grounded unless money was
apportioned to restart production and rewing the remaining
planes.

The service has already paid to replace the wings on 173 of its
A-10s, but Boeing, which originally built the wings, has since
shut down production, and the Air Force didn't have funding for
new wings for the remainder - 40 of which would have to be
grounded by 2021, according to CNN. Those
aircraft are still flying with wings from the late 1970s,
according to Aviation Week.

The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed by President
Donald Trump this month included $103 million requested by the
Air Force to fund the rewinging. That is enough to cover the
production of four new sets of wings, but going forward, Boeing
might not be supplying them.

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US Air Force Staff Sgt. Keith Haas adjusts equipment on an A-10 Warthog at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, April 17, 2002.

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Reuters

"If the omnibus comes out in the way that we expect it to, [the
fiscal year 2019 budget] will restart the line for the rewinging
and will include enough money for about four more rewings on top
of the 170-plus that are already rewinged," Air Force Secretary
Heather Wilson told the House Armed Services Committee on March
20. "The FY19 budget request includes $80 million for additional
rewingings of the A-10. We'll go out for a bid, but we think that
will get us between eight and 12 more in FY19."

The program is considered a "new start," and under it, the
new wings will come with a higher price, as engineers work
through the hiccups of the design phase.

Air Force Gen. Mike Holmes, head of Air Combat Command, mentioned
that the service was looking for a new partner on the A-10
earlier this year.

"The previous contract that we had was with Boeing, and it
kind of came to the end of its life for cost and for other
reasons," he said in January. "It was a
contract that was no longer cost-effective for Boeing to produce
wings under, and there were options there that we weren't sure
where we were going to go, and so now we're working through the
process of getting another contract."

Because of the potential for A-10s to be grounded if they don't
get new wings, "acquisition is being expedited to the maximum
exent possible," according to a draft request for proposal for A-10
wings, issued in February.

According to the anticipated schedule included in the draft
request, a final request is expected by April 3, a proposal due
date on June 5, and the awarding of the contract by the end of
the March 2019. (The 2019 fiscal year runs from October 2018 to
September 2019.)

The service has committed to maintaining six of the nine A-10
squadrons it has, but the contract will ultimately determine how
many wings the service can actually buy, an Air Force spokeswoman
told Aviation Week, saying "the majority of the A-10 fleet
will fly and fight for the foreseeable future."

It was a workhorse in Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS in
Iraq and Syria, releasing 13,856 weapons
between August 8, 2014 and mid-2016 - second only to the F-15E
Strike Eagle, which released 14,995 weapons over the same period.

The Thunderbolt has also seen duty in Afghanistan, where the
government requested the A-10 return in
late 2017. A squadron of 12 A-10s arrived in the country in
January, where it has taken part in an intensified air campaign
against militants in the country - in particular the Taliban and
its drug-producing facilities.

Congress has said that the Air Force cannot shed any A-10s until
that evaluation takes place. But whatever the results, the
Thunderbolt looks likely to have vocal supporters.

"If I were to sit down to design a heavy attack platform, it
would look just like the A-10," Air Force Lt. Col. Bryan France
told The Aviationist. "Our
airframe was built to extend loiter times over the battlefield,
deliver a substantial amount of ordnance, and survive significant
battle damage. It does these things exceptionally well."

"It is built to withstand more damage than any other frame that I
know of. It's known for its ruggedness," A-10 pilot Lt. Col. Ryan
Haden told Scout Warrior. "It's deliberate, measured, hefty,
impactful, calculated, and sound. There's nothing flimsy or
fragile about the way it is constructed or about the way that it
flies."

"I happen to be a fan of the A-10," Wilson, the Air Force
secretary, told lawmakers in
December.